


Repatriation

by alphonseboy



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: CoS fix-it, M/M, Post-Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa, alternatively titled:, basically porn with feelings, ed and roy are far too in love and it's mildly sickening, lots of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 16:16:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13251912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphonseboy/pseuds/alphonseboy
Summary: Roy moves his hands up Ed’s body before they settle to frame his face. “Edward.” Roy says quietly, voice hoarse.“Colonel.”“General now.”“Roy, then.”





	Repatriation

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started with me sobbing over Conqueror of Shamballa and ended in me listening to far too much Bastille for my own good and ignoring other obligations (such as eating and sleeping) in favor of hunching over my laptop for hours. 
> 
> Special thanks to carbynn for helping me out + encouraging me along the way!

The knock on the door comes at a quarter to midnight.

This wouldn’t be so bad, Roy supposes, were it not so insistent. Whoever has decided this ungodly time of night was appropriate for a cordial visit is currently banging a fist on the door so heavily Roy wonders faintly which will give way first: Roy’s will to ignore it, or the doorframe. The banging doesn’t stop, however, and the sensible (if slightly paranoid) part of Roy’s mind suggests that it might be an emergency. Or perhaps it’s a murderer—which, Roy supposes, also qualifies as an emergency. Either way, Roy heaves a sigh, quickly checks his pockets for his gloves, and makes his way blearily from his settee to the doorway.

This had better be good.

Roy wrenches open the door, entirely set on telling off (or preferably obliterating) the source of his current headache.

… And Roy’s blood immediately runs cold, his grip on the door handle white-knuckled and shaking. He blinks a few times.

There, on his doorstep, is Edward Elric.

Roy just _stares_.

The small, scrappy boy Roy once knew has grown into his frame, a touch taller and stronger. There’s a set to his jaw and a tiredness to his eyes that wasn’t there before – or perhaps it’s just now that Roy is noticing it. His eyes are, however, the same vivid color they’ve always been—the sharp amber of whiskey caught in the sunlight. The color of Roy’s dreams.

“You gonna let me in, or what?” Ed asks impatiently. Roy startles, as if he didn’t expect Ed to speak, to be real. His voice is just a little deeper now, a catch smokier and huskier, and Roy has to clear his throat to maintain his composure.  

“Major Elric,” Roy chokes out, aiming for an air of wit and landing somewhere closer to incredulity, “To what do I owe this pleasure?” 

“Shut up,” Ed says, and immediately pulls him into a kiss.

Roy makes a small sound of surprise. The kiss is harsh, bruising and everything Roy has never allowed himself to hope for. Teeth catch on Roy’s bottom lip and he lets out a shaky groan. He winds one arm around Ed’s waist, tugs him closer. Ed melts into Roy’s grasp, molten gold, pliable and hot and positively _radiant_. And god, Ed kisses like a dying man, all tongue and teeth and desperation, inelegant in the most wonderful of ways. Roy feels like he himself could die, right now, and it’d be well worth it.

Roy has imagined Ed’s return millions of times and never, ever, has he imagined this.

Finally, grudgingly, the break apart. Roy moves his hands up Ed’s body before they settle to frame his face. “Edward.” Roy says quietly, voice hoarse.

“Colonel.”

“General now.”

“Roy, then.” Ed says, and Roy almost shivers at how the syllable sounds on the man’s lips.

Roy reluctantly pulls his hands away from Ed’s face and clears his throat. “Forgive me for my rudeness, do come in.” Ed obliges and follows Roy into the foyer of his home. Roy closes the door softly behind them. “Let me take your coat.” Roy says, reaching forward to help him out of it, and it's an excuse, really, to run his hands along Ed’s shoulders, to feel the solid weight of the man underneath his hands and feel that he’s real, real, real.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” Ed says as Roy hangs his coat.

“That’d be a bit of an understatement.”

“Can they wait?” Ed asks, stepping forward, “I’d really like to get back to that whole part where you were kissing me breathless.”

“As much as I’d like that,” Roy says, “I’m afraid there are more pressing matters at hand.”

Ed gives a rueful little grin. “I thought you might say that.”

“Most importantly, am I to assume that this time there’s no inter-dimensional army to arrive on my doorstep at the drop of a hat?”

Ed almost laughs. “Give me a little more credit.”

Roy heaves a sigh of relief. One can never know when the Elrics are involved. “And Alphonse? Is he safe?”

“Yeah. Yeah, he is. We’re staying with Gracia. She almost fainted when she saw us, felt kinda bad.”                     

“The sudden reappearance of two men previously thought to be permanently separated by an unbridgeable dimensional rift does tend to have that effect on people.”

“Well, you seem to be taking it in stride.”

Roy smiles. “Oh, Edward, I assure you I’ve been questioning my own sanity for several minutes now. I’m not entirely convinced I’m not having a thrilling conversation with my draperies at the moment. Pity, my neighbors are already suspicious enough, what with the eyepatch and suspected treason. If I start talking to inanimate objects who knows what they’ll do.”

Ed snorts. “This real enough for you?” He leans in again and kisses him, less certain this time. It’s chaste and soft and he pulls away quickly, looking a little sheepish. Roy thinks his heart stops. It takes great concentration to get his next words out.

“Considering that’s only previously occurred in my wildest of dreams, I’m not sure you’re making a compelling argument.”

And if Ed wasn’t flushing before, he certainly is now. Roy is again stricken with how beautiful he is, how much he’s grown – and how he’s here, in Roy’s living room, when there are a thousand places he could be and a thousand people he could be seeing. Which begs the question—

“Edward,” Roy says quietly, “when did we become… this?” He gestures vaguely between them.

Ed looks away now, suddenly a little sad and tired. “It was hard not to think about it. What I left behind.  I tried to rebuild a life there, for Al’s sake, I really did. I thought I could play dress up with their clothes and pick up their language and pretend to like their food, I thought I could make myself fall for a pretty girl and find a nice little house with a damn picket fence. But all I could think about, was, well…” Ed trails off and meets Roy’s eyes again. “I guess it’s kind of a long story.”                     

“We have time, now.” Roy says gently. “Let’s sit down. Would you like some tea?” Roy turns on the lights to the kitchen. Ed nods, so Roy pulls out a kettle and begins to fill it with water. His hands shake a little as he does it, but if Ed notices, he doesn’t say anything.

Ed takes a seat at Roy’s table and buries his face in his hands. “I met you. Over there.”

“What do you mean?” Roy’s eyebrows scrunch up a little bit. He comes back over to the table and takes a seat across from Ed.  

“I guess… there’s a version of everyone beyond the gate, sort of. Kind of. I met Gracia. Maes. Even a version of Al. But they’re not quite the same. It’s like. There are pieces of them that are there, that are sort of right, and if you squint and tilt your head a little you can imagine that it’s them, but you blink and it’s gone again.”

Roy doesn’t say anything. The kettle begins to simmer behind them.

“And anyways, I met you. He was a soldier. There’s war brewing, there, there isn’t supposed to be—there’s a treaty, Germany’s not supposed to have much of a fucking military, but someone’s stirring things up and that’s why I had to get out, and—“ Ed stops to take a breath. “Sorry. The point is, he was a soldier. And I fell in love with him. Or, I thought I did. We slept together. But all the time I just couldn’t help but try to reshape him in my mind, like forcing a jigsaw puzzle together. There was something wrong about his laugh, and his eyes were always cold, and then I started to think about you, and your eyes, and I drank all the fucking time because if I was drunk enough I could imagine it was you. And I don’t think he cared much that I called him Roy when we fucked. I don’t think he cared at all, actually. Because one night we were sleeping together and the next he was reporting me to the military for being gay and my- my girlfriend for her race.”                     

“Edward, I—“ 

Ed holds up a hand. “That’s why I had to go. The military was onto me, onto us. They. They shot Noah. My girlfriend. I guess that’s what she was. She knew I didn’t love her, I tried to do my best by her—but none of it matters now because they shot her. And they would’ve shot me, too, and probably Al for the hell of it if I hadn’t gotten us out of there.”

Roy takes a deep breath. “How—how did you? Get yourselves out, that is.”

Ed gives a shaky smile. “It wasn’t easy. I’m not sure how I pulled it off, honestly – the problem was, the problem was I had to access the gate. And the only way I knew how at that point was—was human transmutation. So we did it. Again. We tried to bring Noah back. The details are a little foggy; alchemy doesn’t work the same on Earth as it does here… The point is, we opened the gate, and we had to give something up. Equivalent exchange.”

Roy stills. “Edward… what did you do?”

Edward’s smile is pained this time. “I gave up my alchemy.” Roy is quiet, now, so Ed continues, “It’s sort of ironic, isn’t it? That’s half the thing I missed about home. Maybe not half, but…” Ed trails off, looks at Roy. “I can’t go back anymore. I gave up my gate. I’m stuck here, now, for better or worse, and you’re stuck with me.”

Roy realizes all at once that the kettle is about to boil over, so he rushes to the stove and turns off the burner. Quickly collecting cups, he sets about putting teabags in each. He carefully carries them back, trying to still his shaking hands, and sets them gingerly on the table. “No cream, lots of sugar, right?” Roy asks, nudging the sugar bowl in Ed’s direction.

“Roy…”

As Roy sits again, he begins very softly, “Every day, every day I thought of you. It was different this time. This time, I didn’t believe you’d be back.”

“Can’t get rid of me that easily,” Ed says, and it’s supposed to be funny but Roy can’t help but think that it’s remarkably true—Ed has always come back. Roy can only hope he always will. 

“As if I’d want to get rid of you in the first place,” Roy responds, and that sounds a little too earnest even to him. Ed is quiet for a moment, looking at Roy as if he can’t quite figure something out.   

Finally, he speaks. “You sure you still want me?” Ed asks with a self-deprecating sort of smile. “When I’m like this?” 

“Whatever do you mean?” Roy asks. And he means it, there’s really nothing about Ed that could possibly be insufficient or incomplete, not when he’s sitting there, eyes warm and a little sad around the edges and still wearing that lopsided grin that Roy missed so dearly. There’s nothing at all insufficient about that—in fact, it’s almost too much, too good for Roy to bear.

“Can’t even perform alchemy, now. Can’t be in the military anymore, probably. I have nighterrors every night. I still have a bit of a drinking problem. I’ve got two fake limbs and fuck ton of scars. And face it, Roy, I wouldn’t be too good for your public image.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Roy says softly. “You think I’m not broken, too? You think I don’t have a drinking problem? You think Riza doesn’t have to drag me out of a different bar every weekend because I’m plastered beyond belief and looking for a blonde who looks _just_ enough like you to pass? You think I don’t lay awake at night cataloguing all the people I’ve _killed_? God, Edward, maybe you don’t have your alchemy anymore, but the truth is I’d be better off without mine. The only reason I still _have_ a public image to maintain is because our government is shit at holding people accountable. You’re good, Ed. At the crux of it all you’re good. Don’t ever forget that.”

Ed pushes back his seat and stands, quickly making his way around the table. He doesn’t say a word—instead, his hands find Roy’s eye patch. Roy panics for a moment, blood icy in his veins. The eye. The reminder of all the crosses he bears, all the bridges he’s burned—all the _people_ he’s burned. The part of himself he tries so valiantly to cover, as if flimsy cloth can hide all the ugliness that lurks underneath it all. Roy finds himself wincing, but Ed just brings his hands ever-so-gently around Roy’s head to untie the cloth.

“That’s better,” He says softly. Then he leans forward and kisses Roy right on the ugly, mangled scar tissue.

For all his attempts to deny and evade, Roy knows in that precise moment that he’s absolutely, utterly in love with Edward Elric.

Ed throws the eye patch onto the table carelessly. Roy stands and carefully, tremulously brings a hand to Ed’s jawline. Ed leans into the touch almost imperceptibly.

“Thank you,” Roy says, putting as much meaning and force behind the words as he possibly can. He can’t say what he really means, can’t say _thank you for breaking me apart and putting me back together, thank you for seeing good in me when I don’t have the courage to see it myself, thank you for being twice the man that I am._ Can’t say _thank you for coming home._

Ed just stands there and asks, “For what?”

And Roy can’t help but kiss him then, because Edward Elric is just so instinctually giving and kind that it doesn’t even occur to him that the things he does are extraordinary. It’s simply second nature to him to be _good_.       

Ed’s hands wrap themselves around Roy’s waist, and what a safe feeling it is. Roy intends to pull away, to say something more, but Ed is kissing the life out of him and Roy makes a soft groan in the back of his throat. Ed answers by deepening the kiss and clutching him tighter. Kissing Ed is dizzying, really. It about gives him whiplash. One moment Ed is surprisingly gentle, far subtler than Roy had ever thought him capable of, and the next he’s a maverick, a hurricane of want and need, and he makes heated little gasps that go straight to Roy’s groin. Roy is drowning and burning and freezing and melting all at once. Edward Elric ties him into the most hopeless of knots and undoes him all in one catch of the breath.   

“The tea will get cold,” Roy gasps as he pulls away.  

“Fuck the tea,” Ed says decisively, and attacks Roy’s mouth with renewed fervor.

And then Ed is grinding his hips wantonly into Roy’s, and Roy thinks he very well might faint. His hands travel slowly to Ed’s ass and he squeezes, and Ed breaks away to throw back his head in a shaky moan. Roy takes advantage, presses a kiss to his neck, then another, then another. Ed whispers something halfway between expletive and his name as Roy leans in and _bites_.

Roy pulls away a little then, brings his hand up to Ed’s chin and gently tilts it down to meet his eyes.

“Is this too fast?”

“Can’t be fast enough,” Ed groans in response, “I’ve waited fucking years for this. Don’t you dare stop now.” He punctuates this with a shaky thrust of his hips, and the sweet friction almost makes Roy see stars.

“If you’re- ah, certain.” Roy stutters out and grasps Ed’s hips, rolling them up against his so they fit together just so. Ed groans, deep and heady, and the sound is music to Roy’s ears. The pressure and heat is too much, too good, and Roy knows it’ll never last like this. “Perhaps we should retire to the bedroom,” Roy suggests a little breathlessly.

“Best idea I’ve heard in awhile,” Ed says.

The trip up the stairs is less than elegant; Roy almost trips over his own feet twice. His blood rushes in his ears, heart pounding and giddy in his chest. Ed makes him feel _young_ , catches him off guard, makes him quite literally go weak in the knees, and he feels like a goddamn teenager again. Ed’s hands grasp all over him, half for leverage, half out of need. They stumble their way into Roy’s small, sparse bedroom, Ed backing up as Roy presses him forward. They reach the edge of the bed, and Ed falls back onto the duvet, ponytail splayed out under him in a half tangled mess and a sheen of sweat on his brow. Roy thinks to himself that he’s never been so beautiful.

Ed practically tears at his clothes then, wrenching Roy’s shirt off his head. His hands track paths across his skin, leaving Roy burning in their wake, skin humming with energy under the sensation. Roy reciprocates and unbuttons Ed’s shirt with record speed and precision. They press chest to chest and this is it, this is what Roy has been missing all these years—the sensation of being skin to skin, heart to heart.

Ed shimmies out of his pants then, and Roy follows suit, sparing no time to be self conscious as he tugs off his underwear. Ed is a vision: all golden, glowing skin and white scars that trace rugged patterns into flesh. Later, Roy thinks, he’ll catalogue every one, press a kiss to each line and mark, whisper sweet nothings into his skin till Ed can feel just half of what Roy feels for him. Roy reaches forward then and brings his hands to Ed’s hair, carefully undoes the string that holds it aloft. It falls in cascades around his shoulders and back, and it’s longer than it’s ever been – a measure of the years that stand between them.

“Fuck me,” Ed demands, and tugs Roy down over him to kiss him almost violently. They meet and it’s like a riptide carrying Roy off, unstoppable, inevitable, vicious. Roy kisses him like his life depends on it, and maybe it _does_ , maybe his whole existence has been leading up to here and now and _this_ … He fists his hands in Ed’s hair and clutches with an intensity that makes Ed whine, and he doesn’t want to let go, not ever, but… Roy tears himself away with concerted effort, looks down at Ed in an awed sort of way that makes him ache.

“Are you certain?” Roy asks, a little dazed. It’s still hitting him that this man beneath him is real, that he isn’t going to disappear if he lets go.

“Never been more sure of anything in my life.”

It’s too fast, too much for Roy to process. He’s spent years imagining this moment, sweating in his sheets, cock fisted in his hand, tears in his eyes; a decade of longing all building up to this one moment, the crescendo of a song rising to its highest note, and Roy’s ears are ringing in the sound of it. What a sweet sound it is.

“Give me a moment,” Roy says, pressing a soft kiss to Ed’s forehead which makes the man squirm. He swings his shaky legs over the side of the bed to go and rummage in a dresser drawer.  

“What are you doing?” Ed asks.

“We need to prepare you right,” Roy says as he successfully procures a small tub of oil. Ed stares at him blankly for a moment.

“Never bothered with that before.”

It’s Roy’s turn to stare now. His stomach turns a little, and he wants to say so many things, starting with _how dare he, how dare he treat you like anything less than the treasure you are_ —but instead he swallows and says, “Well, there’s a first time for everything.”                     

Roy climbs back onto the bed with Ed, and says softly, “flip over for me.” Ed complies quickly and waits with bated breath. What he doesn’t expect is Roy’s _mouth_.

His tongue laps over Ed’s balls, presses wet kisses against his perineum and drags up hotly against his hole, and Ed _writhes_ underneath him. Ed begins choking out a protest, but his voice gets caught in his throat and he groans weakly as he unravels under Roy’s skilled mouth. When Roy’s tongue deftly jabs inside, Ed half chokes back a whine of frustration. Roy fucks him open slowly, lazily, as if they’ve got all the time in the world. His thumbs soothe small circles into Ed’s hips, worshipful, as if he presses too hard Ed might break in his hands.

“Come on,” he grinds out, “hurry up, _please_.”

“If you insist,” Roy says as he pulls back. Truth be told, he’s not sure how long he can hold back at this point, either. He quickly grabs the jar and wrenches it open, impatiently coating his fingers in the viscous liquid before hastily screwing the cap back on. As gently as he can manage, he works a single finger into Ed, and it slides in without much resistance. Ed makes a small noise in the back of his throat, and Roy bites his lip. His heart hammers irregularly and loud in his chest.  The sight before him is almost beyond his comprehension; to think that he has this, that he _can_ have this after all these years is more than Roy has ever bargained for. For all his pleading, Roy has never made a habit of allowing himself the things he wants, and the universe has never made a habit of giving them to him. An insidious part of his mind makes him wonder what the cost for this will be—equivalent exchange has followed him this far, after all. He pushes the thought away, because right now all that matters is Ed, Ed under him, Ed, who’s radiating heat and light and _love_. Ed, who’s looking back at him, vulnerable and raw, like Roy’s his whole universe.

Roy curves his finger just so, and Ed’s small whimpers bleed into a needy groan. Roy takes that as a sign to add another.

“Please, Roy,” Ed begs, voice scratchy and pupils blown wide in desire. “Need you inside.”

“God, Ed,” Roy finds himself saying, and he pulls back his hand. Ed’s breath hitches a little at the loss. Roy fumbles with the jar again, cursing his slippery hands, and coats himself liberally in oil. Taking his cock in his hand, he positions himself up against Ed. Ed’s hips push back hungrily.

When Roy finally pushes in, it’s positively _cataclysmic_. Roy faintly wonders if the world is ending, because it certainly feels like it is. Ed is hot and tight around him, and he’s making these obscene little noises that set Roy on fire.

“So good,” Ed whines a little incoherently, “So much better, so much better than he was. Knew you would be.”

And Roy doesn’t know what to say to that, so instead he thrusts forward with a wicked roll of his hips. Ed meets him, and it’s like everything that has ever been between them: dangerous, furious, a dance that is much too coordinated to be coincidental. They match each other, Roy thinks, in a way that no one else ever has, ever could. 

He doesn’t know how long he’ll last like this. If the sounds Ed makes are any indication, he likely won’t last much longer, either. Ed meets his every thrust beautifully, spine curving, toes curling, hands fisted in the sheets.

Heat builds up in Roy’s chest. A dying star, bright and volatile and broken. What the aftermath will be he can only guess.

“Fuck, Roy,” Ed practically sobs it, body wracked with tremors, and just like that he comes undone underneath him, entirely untouched. The hot clench of Ed around him is enough to send Roy tumbling gracelessly over the edge with a shout, hands clenching so tightly around Ed’s hips that they’ll probably be bruised come morning.

And like that it’s over, waves receding from the shore, storm winding down to a gentle mist. They flop down in Roy’s mussed up sheets, tangled together irrevocably. Roy breathes in, and it smells of sweat and sex and _Ed_ , and Roy didn’t even know Ed had a smell, didn’t know he liked it, but now that he’s gotten a whiff he’s not sure what he’d do without it. Not sure what he’d do without Ed in general, actually. The thought is paralyzing, and Roy wonders not for the first time how he’s managed this long, how he’s survived for years and years without this boy—no, this man—by his side. Roy aches, because the universe _is_ in the habit of taking away the things he loves, and what if--

“You’re thinking too much,” Ed mumbles into the pillow.                     

Roy smiles. “Forgive me, you have a way of getting into my head.”

Ed looks at him through sleepy, lidded eyes. “Good. Make sure I stay there.”

Roy swallows. “Will you stay this time?” It sounds awfully desperate and Roy could kick himself. Who is he to demand anything of this man, this man who has already given him so much? “That is,” Roy backtracks hastily, “I’m not asking you to settle down, I couldn’t possibly demand you–“

Ed simply leans forward and kisses the corner of his mouth. “I’ve done enough traveling for a lifetime. I’m ready to come home.”

Roy thinks about it—thinks about the date scratched into Ed’s old pocket watch, thinks about how the Elrics have burned bridges everywhere, thinks about how Ed has been torn between cities and countries and _worlds_ , and wonders how in the hell he got lucky enough that Ed would ever call Roy his home.

Roy runs his hands through Ed’s hair, cradles him to his chest. “Me, too.” He whispers quietly. “Me too.”

In the morning there will still be tea sitting on the table waiting for them. There will be questions, too, and the answers may be ugly. There will be a decade worth of problems and sorrows and pain lying between them, and they’ll have to bridge the gap, and it’ll be messy. It’ll hurt. But for now, Roy leaves tomorrow’s heartache for tomorrow. Right now, Ed is here and whole and safe in his arms, and that’s all that Roy can ask for. After all, if Ed has proven anything, it’s that he always comes back home.

                                                                                                                                                                    

**Author's Note:**

> That's all she wrote, folks! I welcome any comments you have! This is my first fic on Ao3 so be gentle!


End file.
